


Daedalus

by CryingKilljoy



Series: Feather and Flame [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Art, Artists, BoyxBoy, Czech Republic - Freeform, Europe, F/F, Fluff, France (Country), M/M, Multi, Paris (City), Polyamory, Prague, Romance, Wine, Writers, Writing, girlxgirl
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-31
Packaged: 2018-07-29 13:11:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 20,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7685830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CryingKilljoy/pseuds/CryingKilljoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He is the artist who colored me blue."<br/>In search of new experiences, the American writer and artist duo, Basil Eads and Lent Rosella, travel to the vastly cultural expanse of Europe for two weeks per city. This edition: Paris. They find a home in a welcoming shop-owner, in the country as a whole, and in each other. Through booze and drugs and good old-fashioned art, their perspectives are shifted forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Part One**

**Milwaukee, Wisconsin**


	2. here we go again

“I’m working on something new, something interesting,” the young artist announces. His legs squirm in the bar stool upon which his bottom presses, unable to contain whatever it is that he seeks to declare, and his fingers grip the mahogany of the counter as if he’s slipping off of the ledge of stability. He is completely enamored by what he holds within him, by what he hopes to share, and he fully commands the room.

“Oh?” the young artist’s adopted sister, Sybil, prompts, shifting in her seat but not nearly as much as her brother. This kind soul is nothing short of adept at stirring people’s excitements. “What would that be?”

The artist, a chipper fellow by the name of Lent Rosella, accepts his sister’s infatuation with a smile, but he wastes no time with his reception, as he’s wholly devoted to what he has to say. “I’ve started to explore emotions in my paintings, and how they manifest in humans with a backdrop of symbolism.”

“Very intriguing, Lent,” Sybil’s wife, Fleming, comments from behind the bar, where she stands idly. “I look forward to seeing what you produce.”

Noticing that Lent has calmed down enough for the subject to be diverted, Sybil redirects the conversation to me. “Basil, how is your writing?” Somehow, through her stunning perceptiveness, Sybil has not detected that I hate when conversations concern me, and if she has, then she simply doesn’t give a shit, and I suppose I can understand why; brooding doesn’t enlighten the soul, though I’m still not enthusiastic about answering her questions — everyone despises forced assistance until they realize that it helped them, but I have yet to break the fourth wall.

I do not address Sybil with eye contact, finding that to be a gesture far too intimate for someone like me, so I only drown my vision in my short glass of lemonade as I attempt on many fronts to avoid discussions about myself. “Oh, it’s fine.” That’s how I leave it, as Sybil did not ask anything else of me. She did not ask what I am writing, or what my writing represents, or how I feel about my writing, only if it’s going well, and I answered the damn question.

Sybil is never one to settle for the bare minimum, however, having earned the title of valedictorian when she was in high school, so she throws more heaps of pressure down on me until it seems as though blood will drip from my nose at any moment. “Cynics like you never mean it when they say they’re fine. How is your writing, really?”

It is a fool’s move to assume that Sybil Rosella will not be at your neck constantly until she receives what she came to receive. I’m not saying that I appreciate it, just that it’s an inevitable circumstance that I would much rather do without, but it is an inevitable circumstance that is still unfortunately inevitable. I detest succumbing to it.

On the contrary, silence rarely wins any battles. If I say nothing, then you can bet that Sybil will be screaming at me until she can wake me from this elective coma, and I will be conscious for all of it, including the point where all of my friends realize that I am either dysfunctional, or my response details something embarrassing. Besides, there’s nothing scandalous about the fact that I haven’t written anything in a week. Sybil is aware that I am not a machine programmed to spew out eloquence at all points during the day. She _is_ aware that I am human, and humans take breaks. Humans fluctuate on graphs documenting motivation. Sometimes we can only write twelve words per day, and sometimes we can write twelve thousand. It’s conditional, and Sybil is intelligent enough to comprehend that.

“I feel that I am at a loss of inspiration,” I finally admit, which is a step grand enough to ignore the fact that I am still pooling my gaze into my lemonade. “I’ve been living in this dreary old place we call Milwaukee for nineteen dreadful years, and nothing ever changes here. I seek something new, something enticing.”

In case I was not clear, I mean with a heavy entirety that nothing wavers in this town in Wisconsin, especially not for me. I’m sure other people are enjoying eventful lives here, but I am not. I, someone whose label as a writer should guarantee me at least a bit of action, don’t experience anything except for the monotony of a daily routine. I wake up around seven o’clock in the morning, brew the same type of coffee from the same brand, write when I feel like it (which I haven’t done for a week, granting me quite the dilemma), deal with Lent when he needs a favor (he most often calls on me to open bottles for him, thus completing both halves of a coin), then later deal with Fleming when she scolds me for disposing of my socks all around her house. Nighttime is where things can differ, but they never differ much. It’s usually oriented towards a movie, or an activity equally as domestic. I don’t witness the kind of adventure documented in movies about writers. Yes, I possess the same moodiness that they do, but I’m not off milking existence in spite of it.

My life is a flat line on a hospital monitor. I might as well be dead, and maybe I could be, because I know that if I did die, nothing would be affected by it. Yeah, living this way would be easier if I ever fervidly sought death (although, secretly every human is trying to kill themselves; some of them are just more efficient at it), because then no one would care, but fighting against pointless matters should not be my most notable rebellion. I deserve to change the world, not to simply exist in it, so perhaps jazzing up my life would be the best option for me.

“Did I ever tell you how I gained the inspiration to write music?” Fleming chirps, and when I shake my head no, she proceeds to tell me. “As you know, my dad is from the Czech Republic, and my mom is from France. They decided, when I was seventeen, to take me to see their old homes in Prague and Paris, and I was so deeply captivated that the need to write music settled over me as if it were prophecy, and here I am, ten years later, with a fresh mind, so maybe all you need is to experience life from a different place.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, America doesn’t have much culture besides heavy conservatism and a craving for diabetes.”

Sybil discharges a chuckle from beside me. “How wonderful it is living with a crotchety old man.”

Although Fleming does not remark on my bitterness as Sybil did, she tacitly rejects it by elaborating on her newly proposed plan. “If you would like, Basil, my parents still own their childhood homes, despite now living in America, so I could ask if they would lodge you there.”

Fleming is a very generous woman (sometimes she is too generous, but the receiving end never complains about it, instead praises her as some sort of modern day saint), and I admire her for that, though I cannot accept an offer that was thrown together in seconds by childish whims. However, there’s nothing to stop me from craving more information about it, as changing my mind would be brought about most likely from grasping just how everything will fall together.

I angle my brow higher than it’s ever reached, astonished. “For free?”

“Probably. My parents aren’t very demanding people.” Fleming shrugs, shooing my apprehensions out of my doors and into hers so that I will seriously consider what she’s proposed. “Worrying about the logistics will only slow you down. I can figure it all out.”

“Are you sure, Fleming?”

“Just do it, Basil!” Lent exclaims, rousing himself from silence.

Half of my mouth droops into an ambivalent expression with the knowledge that my friends are overturning the glue composing my comfort zone, and I anxiously state, “I don’t want to impose.”

Dismissing my qualms about this rather impulsive setup, Fleming rolls her eyes. “Ugh, you’re adorable, really.”

“I’m sure the Koneckys would be happy to host you, Basil,” Sybil assures me calmly, but I’m still as hesitant as ever. This only seems like trouble from where we stand now, so I persist.

“Even if they do, I can’t just leave for the summer without any knowledge of the area. I don’t know Czech or French, so being all alone in an unfamiliar place on the other side of the world doesn’t sound very appealing.”

Lent, someone I thought to be my best friend, is apparently on the other side now, and he’s even prepared a counterattack to what he knows disconcerts me. “Enough people know English in Prague and Paris, especially because they’re the capital cities, and I could go with you if you still require help with French.”

“Thanks, Lent.” This is all I can say without coming off as ungrateful. While I actually am _very_ grateful for my friends, my love for them is on the line tonight. Lent is the light of my life, the artist who colored me blue, my Icarus, and I would hate to see him melancholy, but life is too short to provide for people other than yourself. I can pretend as much as I want, but I’m not fully contracted to anything yet.

“I also think this trip will be extremely beneficial to me as well, so you’d better make the right decision,” Lent adds, which just piles another layer of stress upon my already stressed soul, but I do, in fact, consider what he has to say.

Things are rarely split in terms of good and evil. What I may have cherished in my childhood could potentially be the bane of my existence now, and vice versa. It’s all correlated to perception. This serves to remind me that traveling to Paris and Prague may alter how I feel about it currently, and I don’t want to live a life of regretting adventures I could’ve experienced but didn’t because I was too scared to take a risk. Although, Sybil and Fleming will never let me forget it if I publicly change my mind here and now, so I still have to pretend to be as petulant as a whining child.

I release a moan louder than anything I’ve ever mustered, all to convey my distaste, but I nevertheless agree to the conditions, however unfavorably. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

But it may be worth it, for I don’t think Lent has ever looked happier.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: hello I'm Dakota (he/they) and welcome to this new adventure
> 
> I hope this is....,,,,appealing
> 
> idk it's gonna be really fluffy and really pretentious and stuff so if you like that, keep reading, and if you liked this chapter, you can leave a like or a comment if you want haha shameless self promo but yeah thanks
> 
> ~Dakota


	3. the sin bin

Though I would never admit it, especially not to the hound dogs called Sybil Rosella and Fleming Konecky, I’m actually somewhat excited to be traveling to Paris and Prague. I’m not as excited as Lent is, but I’m close. Not many people can surpass Lent in the fields of emotion. He is an artist, after all. However, there’s a bit of a benefit to being subdued, because if it turns out that we are not able to visit Europe, I won’t be as torn apart by it as Lent will. I have faith that Fleming can figure something out, though, as she is so often motivated by how much she loves Lent, so hurting him would hurt _her_ even more. I can’t imagine how stressed she would be if there were something as minuscule as a nuance in her plan now that she’s intrigued Lent to the point of no return, but she’s an intuitive woman, so I doubt that there will be any problems, and Lent can rest assured that he will receive his wish. He deserves everything that the world has to offer, and we all know it.

The situation becomes even direr when you’re his roommate, and have to witness him tossing and turning in his bed seemingly every second. It’s not like I can fall asleep to ignore it, as the noise of his restlessness shoots heaps of caffeine into my veins, partially because of how disruptive he is, and partially because I am worried about him. I don’t want to fall asleep before he does. I want to make sure he’s okay.

I realize that Lent is only flopping around his bed like a fish out of water because of the prospect of journeying to a whole other continent, and I’m not saying that I wouldn’t do the same if I dropped a bit of cynicism out of my personality, but sleep dishevels you. Sleep doesn’t give a shit whether or not you blew it off in favor of positive emotions. It only cares that you blew it off. Because of this, Lent could bear the weight of dark circles for the entire day tomorrow, as a sort of branding a prisoner would receive. Wasting his good vibes when they are unnecessary will only remove them from when they are, so it is my duty to tell him to calm the fuck down.

I don’t wish to ruin his fun — no, I wouldn’t dream of it, damaging a soul as spunky as his — but he’ll thank me later for this, and if he doesn’t, I still won’t care, because at least _I_ know that I saved him from a non-alcoholic hangover.

“Lent, buddy, you need to chill,” I softly command. I don’t move anywhere from my activity of staring up at the ceiling, as I feel that my words are enough. Besides, we sleep separately in two twin-sized beds, so I can’t clamp an arm around him to keep him still, meaning that my words are all I have to wrangle him.

Lent pays no mind to my advice, as he rarely ever does, instead buzzing verbally about why he’s practically dancing in his bed. “I just can’t wait until we’re in Paris, soaking up culture we have not yet explored, inspiring ourselves, _being_ inspired by everything we see.” Lent sighs, enveloped by adoration for something he has not tasted from his spot in the present. “It’s much better than Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and you know it, too.”

I’m not searching for a debate with my best friend. I’m only searching for the cure to his jitteriness, so agreeing with him is the best way to avoid parenthetical excursions. “Yes, it _is_ better than Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and, yes, I _am_ looking forward to being in Paris, but your tossing and turning won’t bring it on any faster.”

“Such a Debby downer,” Lent mutters with such a fierce disrespect for me (and, by extent, his own health), though I notice that he’s settled down for a second, and a smirk inadvertently plasters itself onto my face, but at least I’m shrouded by night so that Lent doesn’t have to witness my smugness.

“I don’t want to see any wrinkles on your face before you pass the age of forty.”

“I love how you’re so concerned with me,” Lent teases, shifting around upon his mattress once more in order to annoy me.

“I love how you never listen to those concerns,” I spit back, perhaps too harshly for what I was aiming for, and I immediately regret my tone of voice, yet my words have already been released, and there’s no use reaching out into the void to try and reclaim them, but there’s also no use trying to act as though they were never uttered in the first place.

Lent was obviously affected by my mistake, and it’s a fool’s move to think he was not, especially when that damage manifests in his next words. “It’s kind of difficult to adhere to the pleas of hover parents.” He accentuates the word “hover”, clarifying just how much he hates this aspect of my personality, an aspect that isn’t even a part of me.

I said I’m not searching for a debate between me and my best friend, but I can’t allow him to sneak away with the misconception that I hate him tucked under his arm, so I need to say something to quell that misconception. “I’m not being a hover parent, Lent. I ask of you what is essential to your health.” I am endeavoring to remain calm, at least, while my best friend nears an eruption that I have no power to prevent. I started something, and even if it was unwitting, every action bears consequences, and these happen to be negative ones.

“Yeah, because tossing and turning is so detrimental to me.” I wish Lent wouldn’t pursue this argument, but he is. Usually, Lent is a sweet summer child of rainbows and flowers, but when he is worked up, obstructions do not exist. Creators do not forget acts committed against them. If you have hurt them, and if you have since then made the mistake of thinking all is resolved, take one look at their work, and you will find yourself glancing into a mirror. Lent is a creator. Lent does not settle for half-assed apologies, but I’m trying not to fuel anything that would require one.

“I want you to get a good night’s sleep.”

I had thought my comment was the farthest thing from risqué, but apparently I was wrong, as Lent is picking it apart like a child with trail mix. “Oh, please! As if _you_ do the same. As if you don’t stay up all throughout the night, just _staring_ at your fucking typewriter, not doing anything except wasting your time. You’re a hypocrite, Basil Eads, and I will continue to do as I please until you revise your _own_ life.”

 _Damn_. What inspired this kind of remark? Was it really something I did, something I said? Was it my fault at all? Regardless, it stings like hell, and I, as a writer, won’t neglect it.

Lent is not a Neanderthal. Being an artist requires the brightest of minds, and that is how Lent was inducted into the group, so if anyone were to claim that Lent is stupid, they themselves would be the Neanderthal. That being said, Lent is cognizant of the blow he ordered to my confidence, a blow so sordid that even villains shame it from their lowly homes in the sewer.

I allow myself a comment that may or may not breach what is acceptable to my standards and my goals, but it must be expressed. “Is opposition so important to you that you’re willing to sacrifice your sleep just to jab at me?”

Lent laughs, a maniacal sound that would expel confusion from everyone if they had heard the conversation prior to this noise, and wriggles into his mattress as if the debate is over when he says it’s over. “Maybe this is why we need Paris.”

And that’s all he says to me for the night.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I think it's apparent that I have a flair for drama, because in my outline I hadn't intended for them to fight, but here we are
> 
> honestly I love these two, even if they fight, like.,,,,I'm crying
> 
> ~Da[n]k[meme]ota


	4. this is already too fluffy I can't

I had intended to save both of us from a non-alcoholic hangover this morning, but it seems that the universe has only spared Lent, as if the universe hasn’t fucked me in the ass enough. However, there is a plausible explanation for this, although this explanation doesn’t benefit me in any way, and might actually fuck me in the ass again. Lent is the kind of person to rarely regret his decisions, always seeking to consume more and more, and unapologetically so, so he isn’t battered by arguments, even arguments that he prompted, whereas I reflect on my mistakes often, inducing both cringes and a loss of oxygen to my cells, and in the period succeeding the argument, my body shuts down completely, while Lent can run free unscathed, having disregarded it as if it’s a minor cut he’s already smacked a bandage overtop.

And that is why, when I stumble into the kitchen after only a few hours of sleep (the rest of the time being devoured by guilt for something I didn’t even cause), Lent bounds over to me from his place at the bar with Fleming and Sybil, like a puppy greeting his companion, like he’s forgotten what transpired last night at around ten o’clock, and this action injects a massive dose of confusion into my veins.

Does he seriously expect to be best pals with me after our debate last night? It’s not that I’m holding a grudge or anything, just that I’m perplexed as to how he’s dropped something so heavy so quickly. I wasn’t the one who willingly engaged in this brawl, yet I’m the one who has to carry it? That is unjust on so many levels, but I can’t make a scene about how guilt manifests on different people, as that’s an irrational thing to do, and Fleming and Sybil would be more confounded than I am, if that’s even possible, so I pretend that I’m completely okay…or at least normal for my cynical personality.

Maybe something remarkably exciting occurred, and that’s why Lent has dismissed the guilt of last night’s excursion, but I know that such a conjecture is born out of hopeful fallacy. This kind of behavior is typical for Lent Rosella, and, as I said, nothing remarkably exciting ever happens in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — not for us, anyway. This all just a regular representation of who my best friend is.

But then again, Fleming and Sybil always remind me not to be so pessimistic, so I introduce to my system the slight chance that perhaps an event did occur. Lent is always ecstatic, yes, but not to the extent at which he is currently, which is both a sign that my deduction skills are improving, and a sign that news awaits me.

“Basil!” Lent exclaims as he leaps into my arms, and, by effect, disorients me completely, but I soon regain my composure before he speaks again. “Guess what?”

Lent and I are compressed so tightly that I can observe every pixel in his eyes, every ridge in his complexion, every mark and dash and particle present. Irises I once thought to be solely cobalt unveil secrets I would’ve never found if Lent hadn’t jumped into my embrace, a whole amalgamation of colors and textures. I detect minuscule splotches of onyx that breach the ring around the iris, infiltrating places they are not intended to go yet enhancing the overall appearance of the eye. I notice how dark his lashes actually are, how feminizing, how even the night sky cannot compare to an ebony like this, nor can anything. The tiniest of creases in Lent’s cherry blossom lips materialize in my perception, showing me just how much this close contact has elucidated. It is here that I realize I cannot preserve acrimony towards this angel of a being, and I allow it to all slip away like tranquil river water below my feet.

A smile replaces the residual bits of virulence abandoned in my soul, and soon enough I am glowing with joy, all because of a clumsy nineteen year-old artist strung in my arms. “What is it, my dear Icarus?”

As a result of how elated he is, Lent’s breathing cycles through puffs and inhalations so rapidly that it’s as if he’s a malfunctioning machine, and he can barely discharge his words. “Fleming talked to her parents last night, and they granted us permission to stay in their European homes for two weeks each!”

Because of how expeditiously Lent’s speech shot at me, I require a few seconds to process it all, picking apart his jumbled speech to solidify words, but once I can make sense of it, I am just as gleeful as he is. “Lent, that’s awesome!”

“I know!” Lent digs a grave for his head in my shoulder, lungs swelling with my scent, an herbal cloud mixed with the fragrance of my own body, and it is strikingly evident that he somehow feels at home in my clutch, and I feel at home when he is so close.

Meanwhile, Fleming and Sybil are having a field day by the bar, endeavoring to stifle their chuckles and their tears. I don’t really understand how this is funny, but considering they take every opportunity to push us together, I suppose it’s heaven to them. I don’t let them ruin my mood, though.

“This is where our lives start,” Lent comments, and I, a cynic who rarely believes anything, believe _him_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: these rats have already ruined my life
> 
> they're so cute and because of that, I barely get sleep cause I'm just thinking about them
> 
> ~Dankota


	5. ugh the cynicism

“Are you seriously letting Lent get away with this?” My head swivels to face the woman tucked into the rocking chair beside me, stuck to my face an expression that says, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Fleming mirrors my actions exactly. “Are you seriously still a Debby downer?”

Tired of the same title thrown constantly at me as if it’s a valid argument, I roll my eyes, and lean back in my chair. “I don’t think it’s a negative quality to be concerned about your friends. Every elementary school teacher will tell you that it’s an essential trait.”

“You’re in college, you fucking nut,” Fleming counters.

“Yeah, but elementary school is the foundation for life, so what my kindergarten teacher says is what I adhere to.”

A disbelieving laugh is coughed up from Fleming’s throat, as bold as her character and as deprecating as I am to myself. “Your kindergarten teacher once sent a kid to the corner because he wrote in cursive instead of saving it for second grade.”

“Yes, but _I_ followed the rules, Fleming,” I assure her jokingly. “ _I_ waited until second grade to start cursive, so good luck trying to find my responsible ass in the corner.”

“I’d rather pour my energy into trying to get us back on topic.” Fleming pauses to procure a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, and a lighter to go along with it, then torching the stick of nicotine and tar. She waits to take a drag until after she’s spoken these next words. “Lent is a touchy subject that you’d rather not dwell on for too long, yeah?”

Anyone who says that Fleming is not as keen as an eagle is worthy of being criticized for any comments they may make afterwards, as ignoring Fleming’s intelligence renders one as stupid as they think she is, even more stupid, in fact. There’s no doubting that Fleming can figure things out about you before you know them yourself, and she puts this to use many times. She’s putting it to use right now, thus screwing me, and pushing me into the corner I thought I would never visit as the reserved person that I am.

“Damn you, Fleming,” I curse, barely clamping my hands over the projectile cigarette and lighter that she’s catapulted over towards me.

Fleming invites a quick puff of smoke into her lungs before removing the drug from between her lips in order to speak. “Look, it’s not my fault you have the hots for him.”

Halting the activity of sparking a fire on the end of my material demise, I childishly exclaim, “I do not!”

“I’m not judging you if you do,” Fleming assures me, shrugging as if she’s totally disinterested when, in reality, she is immediately intrigued when Lent and I even glance at each other by accident.

“Well, I don’t,” I mutter, pausing for a moment to contemplate if I really mean it but eventually pressing a river of smoke to my lips to forget about my ambivalence towards the topic, and we are then dunked into silence.

It’s peaceful, this activity, although it is extremely detrimental to our health. That is the exact reason why we flee from the house in order to engage in it, because neither of us care about what happens to us, just as long as we’re living life as obnoxious hedonists, and our friends absolutely despise such motives. Sybil married Fleming with the faith that they would be together forever, so Fleming dialed back her ambition to become a ruthless chain smoker, and although I have nothing to live for, I still dial back my ambition as well, and we sustain ourselves enough, but I doubt that’s through a conscious decision to stay alive.

Lent has no idea that I smoke, and I doubt that he would be too happy about it, so I file this activity under the title of a secret that will never be released. I usually smoke in the mornings so that I can shower and change clothes without being interrogated for it by Sybil or her angelic brother, and the aroma of suicide will have vanished by the time I’ve finished with those tasks, leading Lent to suspect nothing. I can only imagine how heartbroken he would be to know that his best friend doesn’t give a shit about living or dying, that his best friend is just a leaf traveling wherever the wind dictates. Fleming doesn’t dare tell him, because she would then be a hypocrite, and especially because Sybil would probably find out about her crime as well, not to mention that Fleming has no desire to expose me when this is our most intimate time of bonding, so it is in this that we feel completely safe, despite being a species centered on selfishness.

There’s something oddly beautiful about the way she tortures her body with smoke, head tipped back, as if to accept a waterfall into her mouth, so that her ginger tresses spill like wine behind the back of the rocking chair in which she sways to and fro, lids swiped over eyes as green as our newly experienced springtime, lashes, as an effect, tickling milk-white skin dotted by freckles the color of caramel, a whole plethora of nonchalance’s blessings. Legs botoxed by athleticism tilt her chair ever so gently, while her arms repose on the wooden wings of the structure. Although almost three decades old, her personality has not aged a day over seventeen, forever suspended in youth. If one were unaware that she is a saleswoman, they would probably receive the impression that she climbs trees as a frequent hobby, derived from the calluses on her hands, the density of strength in a tiny body, and her general wild appearance. There is a certain ruggedness to beauty, and this is the flagrant aesthetic of twenty-seven year-old Fleming Konecky, nothing short of serene in this moment.

I could observe her forever in this state, but she has other plans for me. Instead of modeling for the agency of carelessness, she elects to speak, and when she speaks, she directs the flow of nature itself. “Anyway, Basil, why are you so worried about Lent living a life beyond cold bread at two o’clock in the morning, and artistic frustration?” Fleming hoists an accusatory brow higher on her pallid forehead, which only serves to convince me that I’m somehow the villain for being fucking worried about my best friend.

“France is a whole different country, Fleming, and so is the Czech Republic! Neither of us have been there before, and this plan was thrown together only last night!” I protest, but Fleming waves it away with her goddamn practicality.

“Do I have to be your mom?” She sighs, but she doesn’t anticipate my answer, for she already knows exactly what it would be. “You can call me if you need anything. I should be on speed dial, if you followed my advice when you first bought your phone.”

I dress myself in obvious sarcasm, quipping, “Sure, yeah, I’ll call you — if I don’t get murdered first.”

Groaning, Fleming realizes just how much of a baby I am, just how paranoid I am, just how much fixing me will demand. “French people are really polite. I’m sure you’ll be fine, and by the time you reach Prague, you will have adjusted to life in an unfamiliar country, and you’ll be floating on cloud 9. I promise.”

“This still seems like a horrible idea, Fleming.”

“Goddamn hermit,” Fleming mutters, clenching her dwindling cigarette between slender fingers notched by protruding bones. “You were the one who was complaining about how artistically drained you are last night. I’m just trying to help you.”

That’s all Fleming seems to do — try to help me. I may be eight years younger than her, but I am still capable of making my own decisions, and having those decisions not end in turmoil. I am not a child while she is a teenager; that is not how our age gap works. We are both in age ranges where we are conscious of our choices, where we are conscious of how to make choices so that our goals can be achieved. I am in no need of help. Yeah, I may not sleep as much as I should, but I would probably sleep less if Fleming were hovering over me all night. Yeah, I may be tainted by haggardness more often than not, but no amount of hygienic practices will fix the root of the cause: my rotting soul. Yeah, I may spend a lot of time alone, but that time does not seem wasted in comparison to using it on extroversion. I don’t need help, and I have labored to drill this into her brain, but she is the mother of the group, and a nagging one at that, so she doesn’t give a shit, finding herself to be the wisest of the wise. Okay, I do appreciate her intentions, but I’m nineteen years old. Even if I do need help, I don’t necessitate this much of it.

“I don’t need Paris and Prague to tell me who I am. I can figure myself out in Milwaukee,” I inform the older woman, though my tone is shaky enough for her to pounce on it, for her to destroy it.

“Fuck that. You hate Milwaukee.”

“True, but I hate impulsivity more.”

Fleming’s cigarette freezes right by the entrance to her mouth, and her vision subtly shifts from her nicotine over to me, as sleek as a cat would do it. “Wow, the movies gave me the wrong impression of writers.”

I nod. “Yeah, the movies often exclude the part where I choke on lemonade every other sip, and where I fall off of my chair due to a lack of presence in my own body.”

Neglecting her cigarette entirely, and instead lowering it to her lap, Fleming’s lashes flutter against her cheeks multiple times in a rapid set, and her demeanor changes to one of intrigue. “Tell me, Basil — do you want to be the kind of writer I see in movies?”

I mull this over for a moment, considering both the wreck Hollywood writers seem to be (although I’m not much better, am I?), and the enjoyment they extract from life, and I answer my friend. “I suppose. They seem much more…sure of themselves.”

This is just the response Fleming had hoped for, and fragments of a smile narrowly shine through her taffied lips. “Then go to Paris with your charming young Icarus, and see where you land after two weeks.” Regarding the matter as settled, Fleming finally sucks the poisonous juice out of her cigarette, and reclines in her rocking chair.

“You should really consider becoming a lawyer,” I suggest, amazed by her problem solving skills.

Utterly amused, Fleming’s eyes switch around within their whites. “I’m already practically your mother.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Fleming is literally queen oh my god
> 
> but ye shit gets lit
> 
> ~Dickota


	6. Part 2

**Part Two**

**Paris, France**


	7. Loire is the reason I live

After a flight consuming most of our day and most of our energy (including a minor brawl with a man on the airplane who wouldn’t refrain from kicking my seat during the length of the trip), we are finally in Paris, France, arguably one of the most beautiful countries in the entire world, and Lent’s jubilance has never been more profound.

It’s a slight bit alarming to see Lent so bubbly, as I feel that he could crash into all of his surroundings without realizing that they were there before, and potentially injure himself in the process, and I don’t wish that to happen. Lent’s ebullience should not bring him disaster when it is such a positive emotion, but I suppose a disproportionate dose of anything is a sign of danger.

“This is so exciting, Basil!” Lent squeals, latched onto my arm as he bounces up and down like a child asking for a parent’s permission to join the other kids of their age.

“I know, Lent, but you need to calm down for a minute. Fleming said we should find someone named Loire at her wine shop down the road.”

Fleming assigned us two people to look out for in our travels, one in Paris and one in Prague. These people have been tasked with helping us around the unfamiliar cities, teaching us about the culture, guiding us through how society functions in different countries, helping us avoid shameful faux pas, all the lessons we could ever ask for. In the Czech Republic, our confidante is a college student named Josef Biskup, and in France, our confidante is a shop owner named Loire Babinot, both of whom Fleming knows very well, both of whom she trusts dearly with herself and with her best friends.

Surely it is an awkward occurrence when you’re supposed to trust someone you’ve never met, solely doting on the word of someone else. Yes, I trust Fleming with all that I have, but I do not know the people _she_ trusts, yet I’m nevertheless stuck with them for two weeks per person. I have faith that Fleming didn’t place me in the same city as an axe murderer intentionally, but I assume the last time she visited Europe was ten years ago, so any communication with Loire and Josef could’ve been strategically devised by the confidantes to make it seem as though they’re completely normal human beings, always ready to serve. Maybe I’m looking into this too much. Fleming only wants what’s best for me and Lent, and she wouldn’t put us in the hands of serial killers. Besides, Loire seems like a nice enough woman if, from what I’ve seen of her shop as we passed it by on our way to the new apartment, all of the schoolchildren adorn her wine store in colors of all varieties.

“Ah, yes,” Lent recalls with a smile, as if he knows this Loire woman as a best friend. “Loire Babinot, if I remember correctly.”

I nod. “That’s the one.”

“I saw a wine shop over here.” Lent points towards a friendly looking structure at the end of the block, the one, true enough, decorated by the variegated flowers the schoolchildren deposit occasionally after school hours. “ _Le Vin de Sang_. Blood wine.”

I could just be interpreting every little nuance in the air as some sort of danger warning, but blood wine seems like an eerie name for a wine shop. I was paranoid about traveling to a foreign country even when I was in Milwaukee, but now that I’m here, my paranoia has increased tenfold. Lent is doing fine — he’s reveling in these blessings, actually — but Lent is always fine, and I’m not Lent. I’m the anxious writer who holes up inside all day because human interaction drains the life out of me, and now I’m outside. To top things off, I’m outside in a place I’ve never been before, and suddenly even the names of fucking wine shops wind me up. I need to stop thinking.

“I hope she’s nice,” Lent comments, such a childish thing to think, but it’s an important thing nevertheless. What he’s done is phrase it and punctuate it in a way that screams of prepubescent tenderness, in a way that may prompt people who deem themselves superior to disregard it, but maybe if they examine it they will comprehend that it isn’t a worthless question shaped by the stupidity of a newborn, that it’s actually my paranoia vocalized into something able to be swallowed, and he’s unafraid to say it.

As I see it, it’s quite amazing how Lent retains such simplicity in his life. While the rest of us, demonic slaves to the hell that is college, are wasting away over schoolwork and stress and heavy chains of purple under our eyes, Lent calls to the sun for advice instead of the grave, and I suppose that makes all of the difference. He’s free in that sense, an Icarus flying wherever he pleases, the poster boy of liberty.

“I don’t want to be stuck with a villain for two weeks,” Lent adds, along with a chaste giggle as we near the wine shop.

Attempting to lighten the mood (but mostly mine), I offer, “You’ll always have me, unless I’m the villain you’re referring to.”

Lent turns to me, nailing those cobalt eyes to me. “I don’t think you could ever be a villain, even if you’re as brooding as one.” A smirk pinches his face, and he dashes away from me before I can retaliate, reaching the door of _Le Vin de Sang_ , and pausing there to wait for my laughing figure to compare to his youthful exuberance.

Once he is satisfied by how close I am to the door, Lent swings it open to reveal the lively interior of the wine shop. About thirteen customers dine at the round tables dotting the room, and it is here that I realize that this doubles as a cheese and cracker restaurant as well as a wine store. Amongst the chatter of the guests, a speaker hanging in the eaves of the building produces noises of violins and pianos, calming lullabies for the mid-afternoon. There is a single worker tending to the customers here, a worker that must be our Parisian confidante, and Lent boldly approaches her.

“Are you Loire Babinot?” he asks while the woman is still facing the side of the customers, but once his sentence is wrapped up, she spins on her heel to address us, and it is then that I behold the entirety of her appearance, an appearance like no other.

A curly halo of ebony rests in a sphere upon her head, a characteristic kissed by the culture of Africa, and it is obvious that she maintains it well, as every tiny kink seems to shine with the light of the heaven from which she hails. Perfectly groomed brows in the shade of onyx curl towards the base of an elegant nose, which then pans to a set of lips plumped by rose. A night sky of freckles blooms across her nose and cheeks, across skin tinted a glowing bronze at birth, across a complexion as clear as glass. Her gaze is slashed by the wildness of liberty, but it possesses a certain responsibility to it, too. It is evident that she is comfortable in herself, in who the world shaped her to be, that she soaks up life with a filter on its inexorable pessimism. Through all of this, she invites an unavoidable radiance to her demeanor, and I would have to say that she is absolutely gorgeous.

“ _Qui demande_?” the woman responds, somewhat suspicious, until that sentiment is replaced by one of embarrassment for replying in French to a question posed in English, and she corrects herself. “Who’s asking?”

Despite being fluent in French, Lent was a bit thrown off by the inquiry, but he soon recovers. “Oh, yeah, of course. I’m Lent Rosella, and this is Basil Eads. We’re the Americans about whom Fleming Konecky told you.”

It looks as though Loire is struck by an epiphany greater than any epiphany she’s ever experienced before, and the memories of us soon flood back to her. “Lent and Basil! Of course! Who else would it be?” The woman’s arms engulf us in an embrace while she drops kisses onto our cheeks, as is customary in France, although Lent is the only one who picks up on this and reciprocates the action. “I’m so glad you’re here!”

Okay, this Loire woman seems kind enough. She’s definitely not the villain of whom I was so afraid, and it actually seems as though she has much more than just potential. She already comes across as the sweetest person I will ever encounter in my lifetime, and all of the sudden I’m elated to be spending two weeks with her. Maybe this trip will be better than I had once anticipated.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Loire is so precious and must be protected so sweet so pure but she could also kick my ass so
> 
> I just love Loire okay
> 
> ~Dicknoodle


	8. it's lit

Once we introduced ourselves to Loire at _Le Vin de Sang_ , we participated in traditional small talk as she served her guests, but all three of us felt that we only scraped the surface, and, since we’re going to be spending two weeks together, also felt that it is essential to know more about each other if we are to cooperate in these confines successfully, so Loire invited us to her house for a sort of introductory dinner where we can talk about whatever we please without customers being a threat in our minds. In addition, she wanted us to try some of the classic French foods, because how America spins them is apparently disgusting and unauthentic on the highest level, although Americans never grasp that notion until they dine with the European.

Loire specifically told us that we don’t have to dress formally, but that didn’t stop Lent from procuring a wacky polka-dot bowtie from his bag, and tacking it onto a horridly yellow shirt. It’s not like I’m going to scold him for his fashion choices, however poor, and neither will Loire, because he does what he sees fit, and I don’t wish to break his heart over a casual dinner. But, just to reiterate, it is very ugly, and every fashion designer who ever lived is cursing him for getting away with it. Perhaps there’s something endearing about his flaws, though. Perhaps it reinforces just how adorable he is.

“Basil! Lent!” Loire greets, striking us with the cultural phenomenon of kissing both of the cheeks of one’s acquaintance, but this time I’m prepared for it, and I can do the same for her without messing up too badly.

Protected against the harsh bite of Parisian weather indoors, Loire has opted for a casual sundress that, judging from how new it looks and from the climate of France, she rarely has the opportunity to wear. It matches the hue of a sunflower, as Lent’s yellow does not, and reminds me of how many times I have glimpsed the same color in other sundresses. It seems to be the default shade of these garments, not to say that it doesn’t suit Loire. She actually looks rather remarkable in it, with the pinched waist and the flowing skirt that trickles down to her knees like a river of gold. I sense that Loire is the goddess of the twentieth arrondissement, and maybe even beyond.

I consider complimenting her on her dress, but Lent beats me to it, as always. “You look stunning, Loire.”

“As do you, _mon chèvrefeuille_ ,” Loire replies, fiddling with Lent’s polka-dot bowtie cheerfully. It’s obviously a lie, but Loire pulls it off so well that she has masterfully injected a blatant rouge into Lent’s cheeks. Loire soon catches sight of me, in black skinny jeans and a loose white shirt, and, with a fascinated stare, adds, “And once more to you, _mon hère_.”

“My honeysuckle and my wretch,” Lent mouths from behind the woman, translating for his painfully monolingual friend.

“Thank you for inviting us,” I acknowledge as Loire pulls us to her cherry dining table, upon which a meal of corn, bread, champagne, and pasta rest elegantly in their own decadence.

It is evident that she cooked all of this herself, and it smells absolutely amazing. I’m not sure how things operate in France — that would be left up to Lent, who survived honors French all throughout high school — but I assume they are very picky about their food, and rely on stores only for ingredients, especially when they are hosting guests they want to impress with their cultural cuisine, so it is very likely that Loire prepared all of this on her own, and for that I am more than thankful.

“It’s no problem,” Loire responds graciously as she scoots out two chairs on either side for us, then one at the head of the table for her. “I think Fleming would reprimand me if I didn’t complete my job as your confidante.”

“Yeah, it’s probably best that you do what she asks,” Lent comments, tucking himself to one of the aforementioned chairs. “Fleming can be worse than the devil when she’s angry.”

Lent’s remark pounds a laugh out of me, and all I can do is agree with his clearly true statement while slipping into my own seat. “Cheers to that.”

Loire seizes the metal basket of bread, drops a roll onto her plate, and passes it to the artist on her right. Once done, she repeats the action with the corn, and then the pasta, until she’s dressed her plate in adequate nutrition. She waits for us to set the platters back down on the table before engaging in conversation.

“Do you attend a college in the U.S.?” Loire inquires, skipping the small talk to instead dive into aspects of our characters.

Lent answers the question, noticing that I’m otherwise disposed being inundated by a spoonful of corn (which, I must say, is delicious, and nothing like the store-bought shit pebbles I usually experience). “Yes, and Basil is a psychology major, while I am a visual arts major.”

Even with a hand pinned to her mouth to hide the view of her chewing, Loire’s interest is flagrant solely in those hickory eyes of hers, and once she digests her clump of pasta, she exclaims, “That must be so exciting.”

I stop in the process of joining another spoonful of corn to my lips, in order to quip, “I’m sure it would be more exciting if American colleges weren’t the epicenter of academic turmoil.” I begin to study the round pellets of medallion on my spoon for no other reason than to occupy myself as I include, “Most of us want to die.”

“You included?”

Half of my mouth tips upward in a sly smile. “More or less.”

“Do you at least enjoy the concept of your majors?”

Lent handles this one so that I can actually eat that goddamn spoonful of corn, saying, “I paint often, which is a direct utilization of mine, but Basil uses his major subtly. He can work people out from minor cues, but he never tells us whether or not he’s doing it in the moment, so we can only imagine how much he’s discovered about us.”

Lent interprets this as a joke, but I’ve honestly unearthed too much about my friends, secrets that I would rather do without, and, as he mentioned, I don’t share this destruction with anyone else. All my friends know is that I’m the one to confide in when they’ve been pommeled by a nightmare, because I can figure out the exact root of it in their reality, and I am adept at helping them beat both the cause and the side effects of their dream. They have no idea that I’m actually a tiny bit obsessive about decrypting every action they make, linking it back to some philosophical property about human psychology, but I’m positive that they’re content living in the dark, and I needn’t confess anything, primarily not now, as Loire and Lent have progressed to discussing our reasons for traveling to Paris.

“Basil informed us that he is experiencing an artistic block on his writing, and Fleming told him the story of how she found inspiration to write music by visiting her parents’ childhood homes in Paris and Prague. Eventually we decided to do the same, and I figured my paintings could benefit from it as well.” Lent shrugs as if it’s the most mundane reason in the world, as if the case is closed, but Loire is further intrigued.

“You paint?” Loire gasps, suspended in a high, but she soon plummets back down to correct her mistake. “Yes, you did say that you are a visual arts major. Anyway, what do you paint?”

Lent beams, thrilled by how invested Loire is in his work, in his life’s efforts. “I’m starting a new project, actually.”

Loire’s defined brow twitches.

“The series is about human emotion. Of course I’ll need a model for matters regarding humans, but I’m sure I could call it abstract if I screw up without one.”

“I could be your model,” Loire offers, and my vision immediately flicks over to her with a distrust unintentionally forged, a distrust that is quite unnerving for me.

I like Loire — I really do. I like her a lot, in fact. So why is the thought of her working as Lent’s model so unpleasant to me? I have faced many opportunities to be in the same position, all of which I declined, so why is it that I’m suddenly so jealous now? Is it because of how he lights up at Loire’s proposal? Is it because of how I was so bitter towards what he has devoted his life to, and am now wishing that I weren’t? I don’t fucking know, and I wish I did, but I can’t pinpoint my emotions, even with all of that psychology shit clogging my brain. I contemplate offering to be another one of Lent’s models for when Loire isn’t around, but they’re already talking a mile a minute about their plans, so I hang back as usual.

“Really? You’d do that?” Lent hastily swishes a lock of silver hair behind his ear to present the entire space of his visage to eyes widening uncontrollably with joy, and this glee tickles humor out of the woman before him.

“Without a doubt. I’ve always appreciated art more than I can say.”

I wish Lent would behold me the way he beholds Loire in this moment, with a gaze so rich in prospect and in gratefulness, but that is an illogical hope, because I treat Lent as if he’s an inconvenience, as if I only care about my own possessions and not his. Fleming and Sybil both know that he is the light of my life, yet I never model for his work, and I never allow him his space when he’s painting in the room we share, and through this I also never realize that I’m a terrible friend to him. Well he’s moved on from trying to persuade me away from my cynicism, and this is my heart-shattering epiphany. What kind of model would I be anyway? Lent needs someone beautiful, someone like Loire, not someone who drags him into the mud with me. I might as well forget I ever dreamed of what I cannot attain.

Loire lifts her glass of the sparkling champagne, and it levitates in the air for a few moments as she announces, “Let’s raise a toast to Paris.”

Because the drinking age in America is twenty-one (and Lent and I are only nineteen), we hadn’t meddled with our champagne all that much. I abstained from it entirely, while Lent sampled a few sips of it. Loire — living in a country where the drinking age is a fluidity of the teenage years, and the purchasing age is eighteen, an age that she has already passed — has been drinking her champagne avidly, and has not noticed that we drank it as reservedly as birds would, so we lift our glasses to appease her.

“To Paris,” Lent and I reply in harmony, and it is then that I down my first sip of wine legally, and _damn_ is it wonderful — I applaud France for their fervidness about food, as it is indeed delectable, much better than the crappy bootlegs we serve in America. The champagne tastes like stars twinkling upon my tongue, like material bliss, like neglecting sour to focus on sweet, like the adventures to come in the next two weeks.

It tastes like art.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: when you're both american and a teenager so you have no idea what champagne tastes like and you just basically preference the fault in our stars haha relatable
> 
> once again I would like to reiterate that loire is my actual mom I love loire thank you all hail bless
> 
> ~Darkota


	9. paint me like one of your french memes

Although Parisian weather is absolutely abominable to an American, I decided that it would be nothing less than pleasant to venture outside of the apartment with my notebook under my arm, to enjoy a few minutes glimpsing the scenery and then writing about it.

The purpose of my travels in Europe are to supplement me with the proper inspiration for writing whatever I please, and I already feel that Europe has done part of its job, and is on the track to completing what I came for. However, it’s easier to start with smaller writing projects while I am not at my full potential, like describing the city of Paris or how my time here has gone so far, tasks that should be simple enough to fulfill, and they were.

For the first three minutes or so, I adhered to the guidelines I set for myself; I described my surroundings in the twentieth arrondissement, and my surroundings in the broader city called Paris, France, most of which I had seen when Lent and I were navigating the place to find our apartment. For the rest of the time, I unwittingly dropped that subject to instead focus on the two friends spicing up my European experience, the two friends doing something inside together while I enjoy the crisp air of Parisian summers, and I didn’t realize that I was practically writing an essay about them until I looked over my work, and began to question where the assigned topics were, but I suppose it’s nice to have such a detailed analysis of people, especially Loire because she’s so new to me, so I keep it.

Now my time is up — there was no real time limit, but I’m such a hedonist that my whims are often definite in my mind — and I’m strolling back to the apartment with a smile pinned to my face because of how stupid I was to devote almost all of my writing excursion to rambling about friends I’ll see afterwards (that is, if Lent doesn’t die, and if Loire keeps in contact with us abroad), absolutely merry over nothing. It’s an odd sort of sensation, but I’m not shooing it away. Paris has already changed me, it seems.

I bounce up the stairs to the apartment, offering a quick _bonjour_ to one of the other residents, and burst through the door to our flat, only to find the place shifted from where it was when I left it, which is atypical for Lent, as he doesn’t often disturb the natural order of belongings unless he needs something from that natural order, but I soon understand why.

“Hello, Basil,” Loire greets from her position on the floor once detecting my presence, nude and curled into a tight ball on nothing but the hardwood ground, causing me to be utterly confused as to what the hell is happening right now, but do I honestly want to know?

The sight has stunned me, so I’m still paralyzed in the doorway as I exclaim, “Lent, what the fuck?”

“I sure do love your acknowledgements,” Loire adds with a hushed laugh.

“Calm down, Basil. It’s a painting,” Lent reassures me, not once peeling his vision away from his work, just dabbing color onto the canvas like he’s scared of it. His art has always been so important to him, but I doubted he would leave me to wonder about what this is like he’s doing now. Maybe Loire is more faithful.

And she _is_ more faithful, that beautiful saint who admittedly is playing a part in my shock but is actually invested in digging me out of it. “Lent, _mon ange_ , would you care to explain what this painting signifies to you? I haven’t heard the reasoning yet, and I’m sure Basil would love to hear it as well.”

What would we do without Loire Babinot? Yes, her purpose is to guide us through life in Paris, as dictated by Fleming, but I feel that she’s doing so much more, and she’s _enjoying_ doing so much more. No one said that she had to invite us to dinner, or that she had to model for one of Lent’s paintings, or that she had to accept us so warmly into her heart, calling us things like her angels or her wretches (the latter is out of good humor, I hope), but she does it anyway, and I am incredibly thankful for this heavenly woman. She continues to serve in the subtlest of ways that actually amount to more than she knows — although she probably does know, as she’s perceptive enough to find ways to interact with the slight things — and this is an example. It’s obvious that I am confounded by what my best friend is doing, why there’s a naked woman on the floor of the apartment, but Lent doesn’t give a shit, for he’s both in his prime and in the faith that I can figure things out on my own, though Loire, on the other hand, likes me enough to help, and she’s still able to benefit herself by asking this question, too.

Lent seems taken aback by this, but not by offense, rather by astonishment with himself that he did not elucidate his motives beforehand so that the model could display the correct emotion for it, but he hastily revises his faults. “Oh, well of course. Forgive me.” Lent beholds his painting before answering immediately, as if to communicate with it to understand how the work defines itself. “As you can see, Loire is nude and curled into the tightest ball she can form — I thank you for your endurance, Loire — and her eyes are squeezed shut. This represents fear, how it can shrink you to nothing, how it can strip you of identity (and, in this case, clothes), how it can make you wish for death, perhaps.” Lent is silent for a few moments, but he soon begins to abhor silence, so he moves on to another topic before we can question the gravity of the painting. “Now, art is different to everyone, so I’m sure you could put your own spin on it, or conclude something else entirely, in which case feel free to do so. Art is about emotion, after all.”

Loire hums in satisfaction, and compresses herself even more, which doesn’t even seem possible, but Loire is a woman of many talents that reach beyond what other humans find plausible, and Lent continues with his work.

I’ve calmed down a bit, enough so to escape my position by the threshold, closing the door behind me before making my way through the apartment to snatch a chair that I position about five feet away from Lent’s easel where he works with unwavering determination, and all I do is watch, and that’s enough for me.

Lent Rosella is not a grave soul. He revels in the spunk life has to offer, not the tragedies, as I do. He is always seen with a flashlight beam stuck to his lips, with that familiar glow in his cobalt eyes. Now he’s in a state of concentration, brows knotted together, gaze heavy with ambition against the paper, soul leaving no space for deviation. I’ve never really observed him working on a painting, so I wouldn’t be accustomed to his process or his facial expressions within that process, but I assume that he’s like this when he cares enough about what he’s doing. I can’t say he looks poorly like this, not at all. He looks rather enchanting, and I think I like it. It’s interesting, actually, how the things we care about can change us entirely, even if it’s a temporary shift.

“You look wonderful when you paint,” I spectate with the mellow tone of a child, but I soon understand what I’ve said, and I immediately regret sharing those words, almost smacking my forehead with my hand.

God, how fucking idiotic I am! Lent didn’t need to know that, and neither did Loire! I am fully aware that pointing things out to people can make them self-conscious about it, and Lent is already somewhat fragile in that terrain, which is probably why his arm looks so damn skinny when he goes to tap the canvas with color, so that impulsive comment was tangential and even detrimental to him, but now that I look at it, it’s probably more detrimental to me, because I’m the damn fool worrying about it, but I guess I still care too much.

When I uttered my moronic comment, Lent was on his way to brushing the canvas with a blackish hue, but he stopped upon its release, and now he’s lowering his brush while somewhat ambivalently murmuring, “Thank you, Basil.”

Damn, I really fucked things up, didn’t I? What kind of person tells their best friend that they look wonderful while they paint? Yeah, it was intended to be a compliment, but odd compliments are often discouraged in society, and while Lent, as an artist, is a heathen to society, he still retains basic human psychological functions that probably warn him against this kind of creepy speech. Maybe I’m once again overanalyzing everything, and maybe his tone was so mild because of his surprise or appreciation for it. Maybe I’m also becoming less pessimistic about everything, too, and can actually see multiple sides of the coin, but the positive conclusion could be wrong. Maybe I’m just a mess!

Meanwhile, Loire has finally opened her eyes to the world, and is staring at me with those aforementioned eyes expanding more and more by the second. Is she appalled? Is she just shocked that I could ever say such a thing in my shy state? She’s disconcerting me nevertheless, especially because I have no idea what she seeks from me, and both of them are pushing me into a crate as if I’m a puppy who has inadvertently screwed up.

“Yeah, no problem,” I mutter.

Loire adds a smirk to her expression, and tucks herself again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Loire ships them so hard and so do I
> 
> okay but basil needs to chilll...,,,like..,,I'm sorry but I keep making him overreact but I really have no idea how human expressions work because I stay out of impulsive shit so maybe his panic is justified??? idk
> 
> ~Dakotoe


	10. PokingmanGo

I think that by now it is obvious that Loire is going above and beyond her call of duty to make this the best experience it can be for me and Lent, and I doubt she will ever stop for as long as we’re in Paris. Because of the fact that we’re living a personal life here, not one of tourism and exploration, Loire has the opportunity to be around us very often, and she seizes that opportunity whenever she can, including today, as she has invited Lent and me to join her for a picnic outside of the apartment.

She has a perfectly functional wine shop in which to hold a proper lunch, and she also could’ve used either her apartment or my apartment, so that we would be out of the harsh cold of Paris, but she’s accustomed to the weather, having lived here for all of her life, which means that she pays no mind to how I, as an American, feel. She’s very perceptive, on the contrary, so she probably is aware but just doesn’t give a shit, because I can see that there’s something special about picnics, even in the bite of European summers, and I might come to enjoy it. The right people can turn any terrible situation into a pleasant one, and Lent and Loire are those kinds of people (I suppose that’s why I spent my morning writing a fucking essay about them out of my mind’s questionable inertia). We’ll see how it goes.

Loire has prepared a meal for us, like she did last night, except this time it is more casual, with hand-sliced blocks of cheese, rolls of toasted bread, and grapes, a light snack more than a lunch. In the basket of food, I think I spy a dessert of eclairs, too. It’s obvious that Loire is avid about showing us just how delicious French bread and cheese is, in case we didn’t know already.

She soaks up the sun as fervidly as she can, as it is a rare treat reserved for summer, and it is for this reason that she selected dark colors for today’s ensemble. She is donning a blouse in the shade of eggplant that matches fantastically with her dark afro, in addition to black jeans hoisted up by a quite fashionable belt. Her feet are hugged by mundane flats, which she waves around gently in the air with ankles crossed, as her arms lean back to prop her up across the fleece blanket protecting the goods. With eyes blocked against the sun, peace has consumed her entirely.

“Did you finish all that you needed for your painting, _mon ange_?” Loire inquires, unlatching her lids from overtop her eyes in order to address the young artist beside her.

“Yes, and I cannot thank you enough for your services as my model.”

Steadying herself with only one arm, she utilizes her other arm to extend her hand towards her friend, swimming it through his silver locks. “Anything for you, Lent.” Loire shuts her eyes again, but soon swats them open again fiercely to ask me a question this time. “By the way, Basil, where were you while Lent and I were painting?”

I don’t know why Loire is so interested in this — I’m not a criminal who would be sneaking out to steal something while she participates in wholesome activities with friends — but I answer her question anyway. “I was outside writing.”

Loire shifts from her reclining position to instead fold her legs into a crisscrossed formation, hunching forward in fascination for something that would be terribly ponderous to anyone else. “What were you writing?”

This is always the question that always debilitates me, debilitates any writer, in fact. When you spew out metaphysics with an ending of tragedy like I do, also layering melancholy into the main plot, detailing your plot to other people is quite an arduous activity, more so than it should be. It’s inordinately difficult to tell people that you write about drugs and art and heretics going off to kill themselves, but that’s what my normal writing entails. Thankfully, Loire is not investigating my normal writing, rather a brief description of how I feel about France, so it shouldn’t be too strenuous to share.

On my way to snatch a grape from the platter Loire has prepared, I sheepishly murmur, “Just a little blurb about my experience in Paris so far.”

“I hope all is suitable for you here.”

I wink. “Thanks to you, Loire.”

“Hold your thanks for now, buddy,” Loire commands, focus now centered on digging through her basket to procure a miniature bottle of liquid. “I brought some great wine for us.”

“I should’ve known that I’d be spending my two weeks with a modern day Dionysus,” I jest with a chuckle, and Lent follows suit.

Loire pokes her tongue out at me bitterly as she pops open the bottle of wine with sheer strength against the cork — that, or she opened it before, and replaced the cork loosely. Perhaps she is not to be reckoned with, as if I was not aware of that before.  
Lent pipes up from across the blanket, having just swallowed a cube of cheese that it seems like he’s thoroughly enjoying. “If Loire is Dionysus, and I am Icarus, than what are you? You must be Daedalus, yes?”  
“In theory, perhaps, but I feel that I resonate more with the title of Apollo’s bastard child.” I offer a devilish smirk to Lent, who blushes and giggles in response.

“You’d be a perfect Daedalus,” Loire assures me, patting my knee like a mother would do while she’s lying to her petulant son about his lack of talent. “And about that writing, I would like to read it, if you would allow me to do so.”

I’m oftentimes hesitant about handing over my writing for other people to read, especially if they are to critique the content that I produced for a definite reason, content that I wouldn’t like to change to satisfy other people, but Loire wouldn’t be that kind of person. She would appreciate what I’ve done, without the intentions of molding it to fit her personal preferences of writing, and I haven’t asked her to provide constructive criticism. I should be fine, primarily because this writing isn’t as metaphysical as my writing usually is. It isn’t deep and dreary, isn’t scary enough to shoo people away. It’s just a simple description of my encounters in Paris so far, nothing horrid.

Remembering that I tore out the pages from my notebook and stuffed them in my pocket, I draw them out now to give to Loire, which she graciously accepts, studying them for a moment before tucking it into her belt. In this moment, I my memory slips, neglecting the part where I went on a tangent about my friends, but it’s too late now, and it’s not like I even recall that fact in the current time, so as far as I know, everything’s fine. It rarely ever is, though.

“I look forward to reading it.” Loire nods, a gesture to signify that she’s done with me for now, moving on to Lent for unfinished business. “When can I see the painting? I starred in it, for god’s sake.”

Lent shrugs, genuinely careless about what Loire does, and whether that’s because he knows that she can achieve anything beyond people’s whims, I have no idea. “You can come around whenever, I guess. If you’re up to model for another painting, you can do that when you’re ready, and see the painting then.”

Loire’s rouged lips creep into a welcoming line, and her hand creeps onto Lent’s face to cup his cheek tenderly. “I’d love to be your model, Lent.”

Yeah, so would I, but I’m too much of a coward to suggest the idea. Lent probably doesn’t need two models anyway, so if I ever asked, he would most likely choose the charming Loire Babinot over the cynical Basil Eads, as anyone would. I should just forget about my desire to interact with him, because I’ve always treated him like shit when it comes to art until now, so I don’t deserve to all of the sudden step into the place of someone who _does_ deserve it, someone who deserves the world, in fact. It’s unfair of me to impose like this. Modeling isn’t even that important. My wish to do it is probably born out of wanting to spend time with Lent, but I have all the time in the world with him in Paris, and even more in Prague. I should drop the subject now, and never return. However, my mind doesn’t work like that — I’m pretty sure no one’s mind works like that — so, as much as I fight against it, the thoughts of desire come crawling back. Fuck my mind, yeah? I should become a Buddhist, and find nirvana, and then everything will be okay.

“I have great plans for this one,” Lent informs us, an enthusiasm in his voice unlike anything _I’ve_ ever produced in my lifetime.

I suppose, however, that his great enthusiasm is more than warranted, as he’s been very enthusiastic about his plans since this morning, which is when he must have devised them. What else could explain why I found him in the bedroom ripping up the spare sheets from the closet? He’s still alive, so he obviously wasn’t utilizing them to fucking hang himself — although I have no idea why such a cheerful young boy would do that; I just speculate often when I don’t understand things — so I really don’t know why he was engaging in minor acts of vandalism so early in the morning. He may have an explanation for me. He always seems to.

“Well, Lent” — Loire claps a hand to his knee, again like a mother but not like the disappointed mother she was to me — “I am very excited to see what you have planned.”

I, for one, would also like to know why he was off tearing up sheets at six o’clock in the morning, but I’m sure I’ll figure that one out soon.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: lmao u wild wyd tho (why must I quote memes at every opportunity like seriously I just turned to my mom and muttered "we dem boyz r us" I need to stop)
> 
> I accidentally started writing this one instead of the one before it so I'm just switching them up because I'm so lazy that I didn't want to give up my 50 words honestly I'm a wreck
> 
> ~Dakotipton


	11. theinvestiGAYtion begins

As I have mentioned countless times before, Loire goes above and beyond her call of duty, always arranging more and more activities for us in such a compact span of time, and really neither Lent nor I know how she does it, but I think we should just both agree that Loire is some kind of super hero or something.

Superheroes complete good deeds, and as an effect draw in a fan base for themselves, and it appears that Lent and I are the main members of Loire’s own fan base. Lent is so avid, in fact, that he has volunteered to assist Loire in her duties in _Le Vin de Sang_ this afternoon, when business is booming.

It’s very considerate of him to offer such a thing, and I’m sure Loire appreciates it more than she can say. Around this time of day, loads of customers flood in, despite her wine shop resting on the edge of the city where tourists stay away from, but I suppose the locals are familiar with it, and enjoy the shop nonetheless. Who knows? Maybe the lack of tourists around here is a blessing to them, and it’s probably a blessing to Loire as well, as she is most often serving customers on her own, but now that Lent has stepped up to aid her, some of the weight has been lifted off of her sturdy shoulders.

I really have nothing to do while Lent serves, so I tag along with him to the wine shop to hang around until Loire asks me to help a customer slice their cheese or something equally as mundane. I don’t have a problem with serving customers, as that’s what both of my best friends are doing, but I don’t know shit about cheese or wine, whereas Lent and Loire have studied France and its culture for a while, and I opted to study German in school instead. I’ll do my best to assist customers in honor of the lovely Loire Babinot, but I’m not saying that I’ll do a great job of it. There are some occasions where the thought is the thing that counts, and while I’m sure that Loire would appreciate the thought in these circumstances, this is not one of those occasions, but I’ve surfed the internet long enough to understand that you only live once, and I can’t really refuse the woman who has given me so much in the concise span of only a few days.

For now, I don’t have to worry about sparking the next apocalypse by messing up something so mundane that grief is subdued by a shipload of confusion first. I can lounge at the bar as I twiddle a glass of water between my hands, and gaze out into the specks of color called humans while Lent serves them faithfully.

Lent, being fluent in French, converses with the customers in their own native language, finding it to be courteous to refrain from impinging on their country’s culture by dominating the discussion with their second language, and most of them have not noticed that he is American unless they heard him murmuring hasty phrases to me every now and then. He is nothing short of polite to the customers, always ensuring that their service is adequate, that they know exactly how to sample cheese and wine, that they experience the best of the best during their stay at _Le Vin de Sang_. A perpetual grin is the crux of his package, and it walks with him throughout the store, and stays in the customers’ minds after they depart. He is naturally graceful, as if elegance is his mother tongue. In certain species, beauty is delicate, and I think humans are one of them, yet as a human Lent never falters. What a treat it would be to know this charm as a quality of myself as Lent so confidently does.

I oftentimes find myself staring at Lent at random times, and I have been doing so for as long as I can remember. This is one of those random times, but who wouldn’t want to behold such a tenderness of character? He is so at home in himself, in the people around him, in the world. I have always described myself as cynical by default, but maybe cynicism is a prisoner’s chain when you can observe someone’s continuously radiant joy as I can, when you can see that it is both a latent desire and a plausibly achievable prize for myself. Cynicism kills people like Icarus, but Icarus saves the cynical. Icarus saves _me_.

Loire emerges from the back room with a platter of cheese and grapes, all assembled decoratively upon the plate, to deliver to a customer in the corner of the shop. On her way, she passes Lent, who has recently wrapped up his trades with another citizen, and pulls him towards her to ask, “ _Quand est-ce que tu vas partir_?”

Lent ponders this for a moment, not because he is translating what she said, rather because he is formulating an answer, but it’s not like I could differentiate between the two, as I’m totally hopeless in foreign languages. He shrugs. “ _Je ne sais pas. Je peux rester_.”

A smile and all of its side effects sweep over Loire, and she sows a kiss onto the cheek of her temporary apprentice. “ _Merci beaucoup, mon ange_.”

Lent returns to the bar with his grin inflated even more than it was before, which seems impossible, but Lent is a man of impossible feats. He directs his feet over to me for some reason, and burbles, “Isn’t this so great? I love chatting with the customers, and being here in general. I can speak in French, too, and it feels so…so natural, you know?” Lent stares at me with the expectation for a suitable response, but I really _don’t_ know. I don’t speak French, and I’m not helping out with the customers, but even if I were, I probably wouldn’t feel so well disposed towards them, because they’re humans, and when I’m not praising them for their interesting psychology, I’m avoiding the ones I don’t trust, which is most of them, but I happen to trust Lent, so I nod halfheartedly before he dashes away to the trumpet of another customer’s calls.

This is when Loire sneaks up from behind the bar, and attaches her head to my left shoulder so that we can both stare out into the crowd. “Are you enjoying the view of your buddy?”

I snatch a glimpse of Lent nodding his head to what a customer says, offering that familiar smile that could warm the hands of the destitute, and I enthusiastically reply, “Yes, it’s quite wonderful.”

Rolling her hickory eyes, Loire unsticks her head from my shoulder to instead rest her elbow on the counter. “Ugh, you’re so in love with him.”

Throughout our limited time here, I have already discovered that Loire is the friend who wishes for nothing more than canonical satisfaction, and it seems as though she’s found her ambition in Lent and me, and whether or not her suspicions are founded is off of the table, and I assume it is the same way for her. She interprets everything as a sign to prove that I am in love with my best friend, and while she may not be so wrong, it’s a bit disconcerting, to say the least. The only tactic to prevent her prying is to deny her claims, and I am in obvious need of a reprieve from them.

“You asked me a question,” I protest in an attempt to defend myself and my rather questionable heterosexuality which may or may not be a ruse. “Was I supposed to respond with, ‘No, he looks like a seventy-two year-old woman’s foot crust’?”

“I was just making an observation,” Loire counters, voice trailing out as she dives into silence for a few moments before continuing, “But, if you ask me, I think you should take him to dinner. On a _date_.” She emphasizes this last word in case I am unaware of how much she romanticizes us, as though she hasn’t elucidated it clearly enough.

“What if I don’t like him? What if he doesn’t like me?”

Loire flings a cackle from her lungs, a discouraging one at that. “Oh, you sure as hell like each other.”

“I will admit to nothing,” I mutter, once again employing the skill of pooling my focus into my drink to dodge my fervent acquaintance.

“Yeah, and that’s your problem!” When I don’t show signs of understanding, Loire elaborates. “Basil, what I suggest is to follow the advice of the French.”

Loire is a practical woman who, from my predictions, provides helpful advice, so it would be a shame to miss it for the sake of protecting my secrets. I may like Lent beyond what is deemed platonic, but Loire has no business meddling with that fact. That doesn’t say, however, that I cannot listen to her advice, and figure things out with Lent on my own.  
I finally glance back up to her so that she is cognizant of my accusatory brow lifted high upon my forehead. “And what would that be?”  
“As you’ve no doubt witnessed, we’re very open here. Just be honest with him. You Americans flirt far too much, and during that time of incessant pining, you’re only growing older, _mon hère_.”

“We’ve been best friends for years. I can’t just approach him casually, and tell him that I’m head over heels in love with him.” It’s never that simple. If I retained the same courage that Lent does, I would’ve shared my feeling earlier, but I don’t, and I haven’t.

The woman’s eyes engorge with intrigue. “Ah, so you confess!” Loire exclaims, attracting the attention of a few of the guests, including the subject of our conversation. She notices this, and mollifies her voice. “Dates in France are very relaxed. You frequently go to a public place with friends in order to see how your companion interacts with their own mates, but you already know Lent like the back of your hand, so we can skip that part, and just walk around somewhere.”

“That’s basically daily life for us now. What is he to think of it?” Before Loire can respond with a riot against my blatant pessimism, I wave my hand to shoo this entire plan away. “I would be fine with dwelling in secrecy. I can live with being in love with a phantom, because at least I am in love.”

Loire stares at me as if I’ve said the stupidest thing in the world, which it may be to her, and it looks like she’s trying very arduously to formulate a response, but she drops the ambition to sigh hopelessly at me. “One day, if you meet my friends, then I’ll have to agonizingly explain to them that my charge is a fucking nihilist.”

A smirk laces itself to my lips. “Shouldn’t matter, Loire. They’ll be dead eventually, so their opinions are irrelevant.”

Loire, having given up on me by this point, untangles herself from her leaning position by the bar. “ _Tu est tr_ _ès_ _dramatique_.” Snaring the calls of a customer, she saunters away, all the while hissing, “ _La putain de bitte_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Basil is so conflicted whythefuck
> 
> honestly he needs to get his shit together and just tell lent how he feels like omg let loire live??? she needs a break from all this gay shit ???
> 
> ~Dakootie


	12. all this gay shit

I have found, through my extensive time with Lent Rosella, that he has some kind of obsession with flowers. Surely it is better than having an obsession with the toenails of stray cats, or shards of glass left on the roads beside bars, but it is just as present as those two. He is always selecting flowers from his walks through Paris to bring back to me and Loire, always marveling over how many types there are here, and now he has brought one back to the apartment to draw.

I shouldn’t be criticizing him for it, though, because he looks as peaceful as ever, so serene in his enjoyments. He mulls over each bend of the flower, each shadow and mark, as if it is incomplete without every detail. It’s somewhat harrowing to see how meticulous he is about this, but it’s also comforting to know that he never leaves things behind, even if they are minute, even if they would be left behind by any other artist in favor of an easy drawing. If only he could draw me that way.

A strand of silver hair swoops into Lent’s vision, but before he can remove it on his own, my fingers slide to tuck it behind his ear. Although he does not detach his focus from the sketchpad, he offers me a smile that brightens my entire day, and wordlessly continues drawing the flower.

All of the sudden, our rest is interrupted by someone bursting through the door of our apartment uninvited, but at least it’s not a burglar, only the familiar face of Loire Babinot, except there’s something different about the aforementioned face. She’s not angry, really, just on a mission of some sorts, a mission that she will not let be disturbed until her goal has been fulfilled.

“Oh, hello, Loire,” Lent greets, oblivious to her malicious expression.

“Hello, _mon ange_ ,” Loire coos, temporarily dropping her antipathy for her darling of a friend, but immediately when she spots me, her affection once again drowns in seriousness. “Basil, I need to speak to you.” Before I even glance up from the book I recently snatched from the coffee table, her fingers are digging into the fabric of my shirt as they carry me away.

Lent is nothing short of confounded, his pencil suspended halfway from his body to the canvas of his sketchpad, mouth slack, and it seems as though our emotions are finally matched for once, the cynic and the Icarus merging into one feeling of pandemonium. As far as either of us know, I have done nothing wrong, or at least nothing to warrant this kind of behavior from a woman who generally could portray the sweet auntie in any film without even practicing, and my wonder is now tainted by the slightest bit of fear.

“What do you need?”

She doesn’t answer me until she has dragged me by the shirt into the bedroom, closed the door, and folded her arms across her chest accusatively, as if I’ve done something immoral besides what is to be expected from my regular nature. She just stands there, staring at me, confusing me, like she’s willing me to figure out what the hell it is that she’s called me in here for, but I have no fucking idea, and my confusion is lapsing into uneasiness. She finally elucidates her motives. “I really enjoyed your writing. Your piece about Paris.” All enthusiasm that would be typical of such a phrase is null, swept out of the window and into the streets of the twentieth arrondissement. Although nothing in her tone indicates this, she is most likely pausing to allow me time to solve the mystery about something I myself wrote, something I know better than she does, better than anyone does.

“So why are you glaring at me like that?”

Loire flicks me in the arm, sighs arduously, resembling the sentiment of someone claiming that they’re the one who has to do all of the work around here. “Because you’re so incredibly stupid, _mon h _è_ re_.”

“I thought my vocabulary is more advanced than that of a second grader. Don’t be so harsh.”

“No, your vocabulary is superb, but your content is…” — Loire searches desperately for the correct word to use, much like I do when I’m writing, although my writing is the thing that’s landing me in trouble in the current moment — “let’s just say…questionable.”

My feet shift around on the hardwood floor, a sonata of scuffling and somaticized nervousness. “How so?”

Loire procures the sheets of paper upon which I drafted my description of life in France so far, and without even tipping her eyes to me, she begins to read. “He is the kind of person to drink in the world so thoroughly that he is labeled an alcoholic by those around him, but, like many addicts, he doesn’t see a problem. I catch myself often entranced by studying him.”

Well shit. Not once had it occurred to me, since I rented my writing out to Loire earlier today, that I had actually written a piece about how much I love my friends, how much they mean to me, how gay I am for one of them. Being a writer, my verbosity helped mask some of my true intentions, but Loire isn’t as stupid as she says _I_ am, and she can work around lots of it, meaning that she understood my feelings about her and Lent. I’m certain that when she was reading the part admiring her, she smiled and laughed and enjoyed herself in the feast of compliments I had prepared, but the portion about Lent must’ve been the real juicy bit. She’s been fascinated in our relationship since day one, so to see me speaking so highly of him, as if he is the lifelong lover of a poet to whom all work is devoted, is just more ammunition to use against me, and it is now that I realize that I truly fucked up.

Loire’s eyes unstick themselves from the page of writing to instead trail slowly up to my own, and the awning of her brow arches. “Are you going to tell me that you’re not in love with your friend?”

“I have no desire to tell you anything,” I counterattack, rebuilding some more walls for myself so that I’m not completely vulnerable, so that I’m not at Loire’s mercy when I should be at my own mercy.

“And maybe that’s fair. You don’t need to tell me anything, but what you need to do is tell Lent everything. It will make everything feel better.”

My view plummets to where my shoes scratch anxiously against the hardwood floor, a painting of externalized emotion. “Not if he rejects me.”

Loire cackles as if I’ve just told the funniest joke in the entire world, or maybe as if _I’m_ the funniest joke in the world. “You obviously haven’t seen the way he looks at you.”

Lent Rosella, looking at _me_? No, that’s impossible. He is always invested in his work, not in mine, and that’s all I’ve ever seen. He doesn’t give a shit about what I do. He’s probably creeped out by my apparent infatuation with him, even. He’s always been very intimate with me, and has always allowed me to be very intimate with him, but every action integrates into the natural order at some point, and loses all meaning down the road. He doesn’t look at me all of the time, at least not in the way that Loire is suggesting. And even if he does look at me for slightly longer than is advised, it’s probably in a platonic interest, not because he finds me to be attractive or anything absurd like that. He has confessed that he loves my eyes, rings of hazel with an accent of green, so that may be the only reason why he stares at me (if he even stares at me at all — Loire could be fabricating facts, for all I know).

I remind her of this. “I’m usually the one looking at _him_.”

“Oh boy are you naïve.” Loire unwinds a prolonged sigh from her lungs, trying to sort through my whole unfortunate situation. “You’re a real fixer-upper.”

This is where the tiniest dose of spite is injected into my system, fed up with all of Loire’s games, because it’s really taking a toll on me, and she can’t even know that her advice is advice towards the thing I actually want to achieve. “I’m not your fucking DIY project.”

“Then how about you make _yourself_ your own DIY project?” Loire exclaims, just as exasperated as I am. “I’m only the one prompting you towards actions you haven’t yet followed through with. Just go up to Lent, take his face in your hands, and kiss the boy!”

“It’s not as simple as that,” I mutter, with my jaw gripping itself tightly to suppress all of the overflowing anathemas of human nature.

“The hell it’s not,” Loire scoffs.

I place a hand up to the woman in front of me as a gesture. “Look, it may be different in France, but you can’t randomly kiss someone.”

Loire’s countenance indicates genuine befuddlement. “Well sure you can.”

“Loire—”

Before I can wrap up my cry of protest, Loire’s hands are curled once more in the front of my shirt, and her toes are propped up on the floor to account for our few inches of a height difference, an action needed to sew our lips together in a kiss.

Loire seems to think that this is the most casual thing ever, whereas I am submerged in chaos by this point. Why would Loire just step up and…kiss me? She knows better than anyone that I may or may not be in love with Lent, so why would she do this? Yeah, I’m pansexual, and I’m assuming she’s figured this out like she figures out everything, but how can she be sure of anything? Is she kissing me because she thinks I’m entirely gay, and won’t derive anything from it? None of this makes sense, and damn am I starting to hate Paris.

It is evident, however, that Loire is kissing me to serve a purpose in her debate, so once her claim has been registered with me, she releases me, relaxed, and saunters out of the room as if nothing happened, nothing at all.

I consume a few seconds attempting frailly to recover, and afterwards I barely realize that Loire has disappeared. I call after her. “Wait, Loire, what does that mean?”  
Loire peeks her head inside the room again, a smirk composing her entire demeanor perfectly. “Who knows? I’m French.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: why does this shit keep happening to basil
> 
> why does everything have to be so gotdam confusing
> 
> oh yeah because I'm the author and I outlined it this way
> 
> ~Dakotato


	13. who the fuck is jackson pollock

To an outside, Loire Babinot would seem like the kind of woman to be hunted by archaeologists for years, an enigma protected by another code layered on top, a mystery that not even the finest detectives could solve, and considering I know nothing of forensics beyond what human emotions deposit in their aftermath, Loire’s actions have tossed me farther from the truth than I would’ve ever wanted to go.

Loire and I are friends, and I thought that was our permanent title. She is aware that I am “in love” with Lent, and yet she kissed me as if it were the most casual thing in the world. Maybe it is to the French, but to an American, I now do not know what to do with myself. Loire should be aware of American customs — that was probably a requirement when Fleming stuck us with her; Fleming wouldn’t leave us with someone who knows nothing of our culture beyond what language we speak — and should be aware that kissing, unless the perpetrator is drunk or high or reckless, is usually an intimate act, and I’m not saying that we aren’t intimate, as we do share undeniable physical tenderness, just that this is not how what we have should be displayed. She instructed me to kiss the one I love, and then proceeded to kiss _me_.

Does she love me? Does Loire Babinot, mystic of the world, love a cynical writer who messes up far too often? It seems unlikely. Her best bet would be Lent, which she’s already noticed by holding his hand and tussling his hair, not someone whose eyes are obviously trained solely on another. Sure, I would willingly date Loire if Lent weren’t the crux of my focus, but the circumstances have aligned in such a way that an opportunity like that will never transpire, and I still don’t even know if Loire injected meaning into her kiss.

I allow myself a minute to breath, to sort through what the hell just struck me like a fucking freight train, to compose myself before I face the subject of interest. Generally, I can recover from things pretty quickly, but the complexity of Loire’s decisions kicks me deeper into the ground each time I try to climb upward. After a while, however, I muster enough strength to step out of the bedroom and into the living area, where Lent and Loire study the painting from the previous creative session.

Loire pretends that she does not know anything about what occurred a few minutes prior to this moment, and she doesn’t even give a single indication to me, the victim of her crime and its succeeding confusion. It ticks me off a bit, but on the other hand I’m somewhat thankful that she isn’t making a scene about what we shared in the bedroom, as she would both warn Lent away from my affections, and she would put me on the spot, none of which I wish to see happen. I, however, am struggling to keep my veneer taped all around my body, but Lent is too occupied with retrieving his painting from yesterday to catch me, leaving me spare time to adjust myself and perfect my lie.

Loire glides over to me, legs swishing as a substitute for a flowing skirt, and grasps my hand to pull me over, but not before offering a kiss that rides dangerously close to my lips, a kiss that Loire doesn’t acknowledge as anything out of the ordinary. “Basil, honey, come and see Lent’s painting.”

I sheepishly comply, but my feet are not so obedient. They trip over each other with every step, despite the pleas of my mind that order them to stop. Beautiful women confuse me, and Loire is ethereal. She can’t just do this, and expect me to be all right. God, am I in love with both of my friends? And is it destroying me?

Smiles scrub any apprehension from my companions’ faces as Lent holds up his painting and Loire gestures to it to soak up my opinion, and I think that my slackened jaw and wide eyes can say enough for them. What Lent has created is something that convinces me that every time I pestered him about his art I was a villain, blind to his artistic capacity. He tweaked some details here and there, primarily replacing the background of the painting with darkness and the faintest splotch of hands tugging towards the model so that our Parisian flat won’t render the masterpiece mundane, and I’m loving every bit of it.

Even through Lent’s beaming, a hint of worry drapes itself upon the rings of cobalt that regularly shine so bright, and it is evident in this moment that he reveres everything I say to him, that he reveres _me_. I can’t fuck this up for him because I don’t know what to say, so do my absolute best in honor of him.

“Lent…it’s spectacular. I-I don’t know what to say.” My hanging jaw soon closes into a flustered smile. Loire, predicting my actions, relieves Lent of his painting as I throw my embrace onto him as if I haven’t see him in years, as if he were off fighting a war against artistic restraint and has finally returned unscathed, and Lent mirrors the sentiment.

Loire is off to the sidelines of observation, but she isn’t squealing like a teenage girl when her two favorite characters from her favorite television show finally hook up. She is respectful this time, reserving a warm smile towards the friendship Lent and I share, and I am grateful for her composition.

My hand instinctively scrapes at Lent’s neck where his moonlight hair fades out into plush skin, and I sift a few strands in between my fingers, while Lent’s arms swivel around my waist and his head sleeps upon my shoulder, breathing in my scent. We are safe in scantiness, in the poverty of soul and the satiety of another soul, an equilibrium without relinquishing what we have. Our breaths are synchronized like music, and it’s difficult to believe that we only spend seven seconds in each other’s clutch before Lent pulls away bashfully, and retrieves the painting from Loire to lean against the wall behind him.

Loire offers me an expression that screams, “Good luck trying to convince me that you’re not in love with him,” and I flip her the bird while Lent isn’t looking. Loire may not know much about how Americans respond to kissing, but she sure as hell knows my malicious signal well enough to giggle.

Lent drags his prop out of the bedroom, the infamous sheet I witnessed being torn up only this morning, and drops it off with Loire without explaining what she is to do with it. Loire infers that she is to curl up in it, so to prepare for this, she unbuttons some of the notches on her blouse so that it reveals her shoulders, kicks off her shoes, and settles on the ground with the tattered flag a blanket around her.

Lent hums in approval, and gathers his supplies to set up by his easel. I assist him by furnishing the stand with a fresh canvas, for which he thanks me with a curt grin, and I then search for a chair so that I can watch the artistic process unfold before me. And just like that, Lent is off on his voyage of color, although it is monochrome at the moment because of Lent’s desire to first sketch out the outline of his work.

The sound of the pencil ticking against the canvas is somewhat comforting, for whatever reason, and, much like music does according to scientific study, it orchestrates my heartbeat into something steady and calm. Drowsiness pats my lids, and it is clear now more than ever that art can be quite soothing. Hell, Lent could be employed to sketch by someone’s bedside to help them fall asleep!

“ _Mon ange_ , what does this painting mean to you?” Loire asks as Lent wraps up the outlining portion of his masterpiece.

Starting on mixing his paints together to find the perfect shade to represent Loire’s skin tone (a blend between the dark brown pooled at the end of the palette, and the white in the next well), he answers, “The sheet riddled with holes represents the flag of a corrupted nation, the light color of it representing peace, but of course that peace has been shot many times, and has been left in tatters.” Lent twirls his paintbrush in his new concoction of hues, tugging it across the back of his hand to test it. “Loire is clutching the flag for dear life, which signifies how some people try to hold onto what is irreparable, or how they try to fix it.”

Loire is much more adept at giving her feedback than I am, and I’m sure there’s a reason for this. Loire loves Lent — that is an obvious fact — but she hasn’t known him for all that long. She didn’t grow up with him as I did, didn’t explore the folds of his soul as I did, didn’t learn how to read him as I did. She isn’t cognizant of the fact that even people who are ostensibly joyous all of the time cultivate ulcers where the dark layers of the soul rub against each other like the stubble of a wearied man. Lent is capable of being a wreck, and I honestly don’t know how he avoids it besides subduing however much tragedy he can, so that no one can see it until they’ve quested where the seemingly perpetual sun can’t even reach its tendrils of gaiety. I have yet to see Lent break down, but I know that when the day comes, it will be like nothing ever documented before, and I’m frankly terrified.

So, yeah, Loire doesn’t understand Lent the way I do, and she interprets his reasoning behind the painting as a manifestation of pretentiousness typical of artists like Lent, whereas I’m freaking out. Lent doesn’t recognize my concerns, and I doubt he even knows that _I_ know what’s up with him. I’m not one for causing riots, though, so I stay silent. My Icarus could simply be dipping his toes into his darkness with no intentions of staying once he’s collected the proper samples he needs for his work. With the way Lent’s been acting around us, constant displays of cheer, I doubt he will allow his malignant side to take hold of him any time soon, and while it is an inevitable occurrence, I can deal with it when it comes. There’s no use in being worried over what is not facing me currently.

“That’s wonderful, Lent!” Loire exclaims, but Lent can only lift the corners of his mouth in an accompaniment to her compliment, and whether or not that’s because he’s concentrated or nervous I cannot decipher.

My worries remain muted for the rest of the session, and it is only when Loire lifts herself from the floor upon seeing Lent place down his paintbrush that I am snapped back to the reality. I have no idea what I was thinking about in that state of repose, or if I was even thinking at all, but everything is a big groggy afterwards. On the contrary, to remain conscious in an expansive boredom is to offer your soul to the devil, so I must’ve enjoyed myself in my numbness.

While Loire is splotching Lent’s face with kisses, Lent twists his hands together, and anxiously asks yet another favor from someone who is completely enthusiastic to perform it, but he is nevertheless ashamed of his question. “Are you fine with coming back for another painting sometime within the rest of our stay?”

Loire’s pearly teeth shine through her lips, a sign sweet enough to immunize one to further sugar. “Lent, you already know my answer, but I’m sure Basil would be just as willing to model for you.” Loire turns to me accusatively. “Wouldn’t you, Basil?”

A ball of phlegm lodges itself in my throat, a ball of phlegm that I cannot remove, a ball of phlegm that will choke me to death before I can even answer this simple question. Speaking demands all of my strength, yet I still can only croak. “Um, yeah, sure.”

I don’t know why Loire would throw me under the bus like this, especially since she knows that I’m so shy around Lent, but I’m actually kind of appreciative of her efforts, as Lent is now beaming with the radiance of a thousand suns, and that is worth it all, and I am content in my response now that Lent is hugging me with the same intensity as a child would retain, and Loire winks at me from behind Lent’s turned back, to which I reply with a thanks mouthed gently enough that Lent doesn’t notice my jaw shifting atop his head.

Loire is pleased with my decision, and to be honest, so am I.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm back bitches
> 
> with a cute chapter except not really bc idk how to get my shit together
> 
> ~Dakut-to-the-chase


	14. galaxy aesthetic

Lent Rosella is a charming young man without ever thinking about possessing those qualities. To be honest, I doubt those qualities have passed in the same sentence that beholds his name, and it is this that makes him all the more charming.

Naturally, people are nothing short of flustered when in the vicinity of someone whose social butterfly wings pull at the span of the room in every situation beyond solitude, and when that someone is unaware of the effect they cast over their audience, nothing changes except for the newfound urge to protect them from every threat that may or may not present itself in their path at any point during their life, because charming people have a sort of drug in their systems that is constantly diffusing wherever they go, where it is to be soaked up by others like it’s the rarity of sun beams in Paris, and that archetype is the archetype under which my best friend is categorized, which is a pleasant thing to be for him, although it’s drilling that urge into my mind as it typically does, and every sight of him I glimpse, even if it is for the scantiest of moments, riles me up.

I should only reserve space in my heart for excitement that I have the opportunity to be a model for one of Lent’s paintings, but nervousness is inherent in human psychology, and I, as a psychology major, know this better than anyone, better than Lent. He may not understand why I’m so anxious, which will only serve to tempt that anxiety into yet another splurge of ego, but it’s not like I can blurt out that I’ve been dreaming of being his model but am now taking advice from cowardice. And besides, the part of me whose sole ambition is ambition itself would be thoroughly shattered to know that I allowed my anxiety to blanket me once more, and eventually anxiety does lapse into a not too distant memory.

I’m sure Loire would be on my back if I submitted to the darker portions of humanity, to fear towards someone that should be my best friend, and although this does not concern Loire, I have learned not to underestimate her abilities in the region called problem solving and archaeology, so she’ll find out somehow. She may have planted cameras all throughout the apartment, and I can’t be certain whether or not her motives would be to catch Lent and me in the act of professing our love to each other, a love that will forever be unrequited with the way that I treat him, but I don’t want to risk inadvertently taping a panic attack.

On the contrary, maybe my panic is justified when he tells me that he will be painting me nude — but that’s not the worst part. He will be literally _painting_ me, as in swishing colors over my body, over my bare skin, and seeking art from it.

As roommates, we have seen each other at our best and at our worst and at every state between the two, and somewhere within those poles is nakedness. While some of those instances occurred unwittingly (i.e. when one of us walked in on the other after a shower, or singing barren for some reason, or performing some other wacky ritual that doesn’t demand nudity), other instances were out of choice.

I can recall the days when we would lounge in random spots with clothes far out of our sights just for the hell of it. Lent uses these sessions to reflect on artistic things while enacting an artistic thing itself, and I mostly use them to support him and to try something new. Of course, those were the days when I was in denial about my feelings for him, and platonic nudity would not kindle any attraction beyond the occasional sexual desire, but Lent would find that to be an interesting display of the human computer. I know, however, that Lent would tell me to never feel embarrassed for being naked, because nothing has changed for both parties since our previous excursions, only one party, and I also know that he would somehow find philosophy (with a dash of suspicion) in a raging boner from someone he may or may not deem his best friend — though I shouldn’t assume that he holds anything for me besides friendly interest — so maybe things won’t be so bad after all.

I’m not that confident in saying that my opinions are stable, seeing as I debate each side of the account heavily, sometimes ending up where I last left off, so really I should just waltz right into the nude situation, and fucking win it. Impulsivity has never been my forte nor my desire (and it is often my repellent), but that’s the only tactic I can think of to combat my unrelenting disease.

While Lent is off collecting his painting supplies, which I can see is a conglomerate of blues and purples and pinks and blacks, I carefully slice the clothing off of my body with fingers as cold and bony as a hammer. Impulsivity isn’t something that manifests upon will, rather something that is conditioned into the beholder, and I am on my way, so for now I can procrastinate a bit less than I usually would. At last the final rags have dropped off the ledge of my figure, and I stand awkwardly in a space Lent will spy once he swivels around.

And swivel around he does, rapidly snatching a sharp breath and a faint yelp of astonishment, and leaving me to wonder if I have offended him in some shape or form, and to the best of my analytical knowledge, I have not, or I at least hope that I have not.

My brows swim towards each other, tilting my head in Lent’s direction. “Is everything okay?”

I had suspected that it would be Lent asking _me_ this question, but oh how confusing this life in Paris is. He’s seen me naked before, and I have witnessed the same texture draped over _his_ body, so why is this any different? Perhaps I should be telling myself that, but I’m not the one who can usually handle shit like this. On the outside, my demeanor is that of someone whose largest step out of the shadows is being named the calmest person in the school yearbook, but the inside is a different story, whereas Lent is generally a down to earth kind of person, the kind of person who shouldn’t be gaping at me like both of us have done something wrong.

“Yeah, absolutely superb. It’s just…” Lent hooks his teeth to his bottom lip, rectangles of ivory colliding with plump cherry blossom petals, and unlatches it just as quickly. “I’ve never painted someone so beautiful before.”

Does this angel ever cease to disconcert me in the most pleasant manner possible? Does this angel truly mean what he utters? Does this angel care for me in the same fashion that I care for him? Admittedly I am head over heels in love with him, but love is perfectly content with observing, because love in its purest sense is not inherently greedy, rather blissful by appreciating the wonderful people in life, so there is no need to inform Lent of this, and there is no need to pick apart everything he says and does.

I could just be reading into this too much, and as a fervid reader I wouldn’t be inordinately shocked, so I play it off. “Would Loire be too happy to hear that?” I jest in an attempt to make light of the tense circumstances, but I eventually skip straight to the point by clearing my throat. “So where should I pose?”

Lent asks of himself a few more seconds to recover, and genuine surprise coats his face once he’s snapped back to reality, but he composes himself quicker than I ever could. “Oh, um, just the couch…over there. Yeah, that would be fine.”

Lingering on my friend for a second, I shuffle over towards the sofa with an obvious stiffness plaguing my bones and joints, and I swear I can detect the sound of my body caving under the pressure of what my mind has brewed up. Although it is ineluctable, I pretend as though I can ignore it.

Lent is back with his paints (whose box I now see reclining against the wall behind him, labeling that the substance is non-toxic and presumably safe on the skin, but I had no prior qualms about what Lent has spent years practicing; I know he would never subject me to poison) when I finally select a position on the couch, and he treks over towards me to begin his work. Gracefully accepting the pillow I toss to him to mitigate the blow on his knees, he clutches his brush determinedly within his slender fingers as he surveys his human canvas, but somehow his gaze isn’t as demeaning as I would’ve expected it to be, rather a gentle sweep of water over my build, and it soothes me.

Lent finds everything to be suitable, and plunges his brush into a puddle of violet as an appetizer to the final product. I am not prepared for when he actually presses the hue to the shallow dip of my side, for when a whole civilization of goosebumps migrates to my skin, for when hedonism consummates an abrupt marriage with art.

“ _Lent_ ,” I gasp, and upon instinct I shoot out my arm to grasp that of the artist’s, as if I need steadying on a structure that can support me just fine.

“It’s cold, yeah?” Lent remarks with nothing but cheer in his throat, but a mix of indescribable emotions furnishes his eyes. Even his paintbrush slows down, now slowly dragging across my flesh to cross the finish line, which only disquiets me more.

Before another one of Lent’s brushes (this time it’s clean, until he saturates it with a different hue than the last) contacts me with a splotch of the same cobalt that resides in his irises, I swipe my finger over the plush bristles, and dot the bulb of my artist’s nose with it, a silly smile quirking the features of my currently unscathed visage. In retaliation, Lent redirects his brush to behind my ear to utilize a strategy instead of a mirror, and it sure as hell draws a yowl out of me, at which Lent giggles devilishly.

“I think the dot on my nose really suits me, Basil.” These words he expels are swathed in the remnants of his laughter, which includes my name, and every syllable he puffs out is a symphony to my paint-stained ears.

My head cranks towards my friend, adding a charismatic smile to its front wall, a wink to a couple inches above. “Well, the god of beauty can sport anything.”

Lent dips his head to the floor in order to conceal the crimson dyeing his cheeks, and pretends as though he’s reclaiming some more paint. He’s obviously pleased with my words, but that is a notion he intends to hide, and he even goes so far as to change the subject (though it’s not like compliments have a back to jump off of, besides reciprocating them). “I went down to the marketplace with Loire today.” Lent dabs in a lake of fuchsia, then applying it to my skin while he speaks idly.

My brow shrugs. “Oh? How did that go?”

“We ran into some schoolchildren with whom Loire is acquainted, and she introduced me to them. They were very enthusiastic about the fact that I’m friends with her, and frankly so am I.”

The first level of a smile tweaks the left corner of my lips, and as I stare up at the ceiling as if it’s the night sky speckled with white fire, I whimsically sigh, “I admire the youth.”

“Then why do you seem to despise _yourself_?”

Lent catches onto a lot, and I suppose I should’ve registered this more adeptly, should’ve placed it in the first row of my mind for easy accessibility. He’s an artist, for god’s sake! Observation is a prerequisite to skillful painting, and oftentimes that observation is an analysis of the human mind instead of corporeal phenomena. Even if he weren’t an artist, he could decrypt that maybe my actions aren’t so optimistic on most occasions. I run through many boxes of coffee cups, cultivate prominent shadows under my skin, weary myself by doing ostensibly nothing physical, weary myself by _stressing_. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if I cared more about myself I would probably fix these things, but I don’t so I haven’t, and Lent has made that clear.

But I’d rather not delve into the possibilities of my pessimistic character, and he also hijacked my point, so I weave my way back into discussing why I admire the varying shades of green in a world that prefers grey over anything else.

“Because I am not a member of the youth. Mental age is the truly radiant factor. A spirited laugh can be heard regardless of whether or not you can see its origin, whether or not you can see its age from the vessel. The mind is better preserved than the body. As many television programs will teach you, it’s what’s on the inside that counts, so on that scale I am not young. I am a crotchety old man.”

Lent digs a color into the hollows of my neck. “And what would I be?”

My vision departs from the ceiling, then gliding over to meet Lent’s own vision. A hand extends to clutch his chin between my thumb and index finger to better steady our connection. “You, my beautiful Icarus, would be immortal.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: wow what a cute and awkward chapter
> 
> also why is it that I update this like only once every week omg I used to write around 3 chapters per day
> 
> ~Dakudos


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